Feathers and Thorne Series Books 1 - 3: The Complete Collection

Chapter Eight

Isabella

Sam doesn’t say much, and I can’t really pull it out of her.

I lean forward on the desk where we sit down, something I thought would involve us talking, but everything is off. She hasn’t liked Carter from the start, so it’s hard to be upset with her saying that she wants distance. I’m just shocked that her distance involved ignoring all my phone calls and texts. Yet, she’s been cuddling up close with Tristan Blackthorne.

I don’t want to come across as rude, especially with her finally just coming back to my side, so I drop it.

“How have things been?” I stammer, opening the door to our friendship again.

She seems receptive so far, offering a smile in return. “It’s been okay. I moved into Tristan’s apartment.”

“Oh, that’s good. I bet it’s a lot better than our last place.”

Her eyes flash at the memories of where we first ran into one another. “Oh, yeah. It’s certainly a step up. The Magnolia apartments have washing machines inside the apartments. They don’t take quarters.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a step up,” I breathe. “So glad we’re out of there.”

She looks around the office. It’s not yet put together all the way, and it’s basic in the fact that it’s just been thrown together in less than a day, but it’s stunning and perfectly put together for the effort. I’m thankful for Carter’s attention to detail in times like this. Besides that, it feels like we’ve compromised for once. I wanted a job, and he wanted a home for us to share.

Now we have both, and he doesn’t have to worry about me walking aimlessly through Manhattan.

“This is a beautiful house, Isabella,” she says, breaking the second dose of heavy silence between us. “I’m really happy for you.”

Biting my tongue, I only nod.

Sam must sense my apprehension. She shifts in her chair, throwing daggers with just a look. “I didn’t mean to call him a villain, Isabella. I didn’t intend it like that.”

“It’s okay, Sam. It’s fine. Just… you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I don’t want you to stop being my friend over this.”

She nods slowly, leaning into her palm with her elbow on the desk. “I’m not going to say Tristan is any better. I just have a feeling.”

My senses perk at her claim. “A feeling about Carter?”

She nods slowly. I keep a close eye on the door, my stomach sinking.

“I’ve had a bad feeling, too,” I admit.

Her eyes narrow. “Why is that, Isabella?”

I hesitate to say anything about it out loud, mostly because it will seem more real if I do. Eventually, I garner the courage to bring it up, even if my heart aches with the thought.

“Okay,” I mutter. “At the election party, after Carter found out that he lost, there was this woman. They didn’t speak or anything, but there was this weird eye-contact thing that threw me off. I wasn’t really bothered when I saw it, but he got really short with me after that. Then, when I asked about it later, he blew me off like it was nothing.”

Her lips curl into a ribboned bunch on one side of her face. “Okay, so what does that mean? You think he’s cheating on you or—”

“No, never,” I cut in, not even willing to consider that.

“Isabella, if he is, then you need to know now before you get deeper with Carter.”

“I’m already in too deep. I love him. He would never cheat on me.”

“What’re we talking about in here?” Carter turns the corner slowly. His glare pulls through me slowly before slicing in Sam’s direction shortly after. “Sam, I think Tristan is downstairs waiting for you. You should go.”

I stand and give my dear friend a hug, watching her scurry out of the room. When I try to leave, Carter stops me, his hand resting firmly on the front of my sweats. I freeze like he’s pinned me to the floor, but having his fist dig into the mound of my sex is daring enough.

“What were you speculating with your friend about, dove?”

“Nothing,” I pant, feeling like a filthy liar. “We were just catching up.”

His eyes glower with rage. “You think I’m unfaithful to you?”

“No, sir. Not at all.”

He leans in close, his lips brushing the shell of my ear as he whispers, “Do you think I could fuck another woman like I fuck you, dove?”

I shake my head in refusal. “No, sir.”

“Good,” he breathes. “Go bend over onto your desk, then.”

My heart falls into my stomach. “What?”

His hand rips my sweats down, leaving me in a tiny pair of lace panties. I hug my sweatshirt a little tighter, knowing that it’s the next article of clothing to go. Sure enough, he pushes me to turn around and pulls the back of my sweatshirt up and over my head before throwing it on the floor.

“Desk, now.”

My breath hitches while I walk toward my new desk, wishing I didn’t have to break it in so soon. Thankfully, there’s not much on it yet, so when I lay forward against it, I don’t have to clear a space. I shut my eyes, hearing his belt slide through the loops of his pants.

“I don’t get it, dove.”

“Don’t get what?”

His voice turns into a rumbling snarl. “Why you would think my cock would rise for anyone else.”

“I know who you are,” I admit. “I know who you used to be. I’m not accusing you of being unfaithful. I just know that your needs are—”

My words are stopped short when the belt cuts through the air, smacking my ass with perfect precision. I cough a cry, fighting back from jumping right off this desk and breaking into hysterical pleas. But Carter needs this more than I do sometimes. So, despite my terrible pain intolerance, I accept it.

He hits me two more times before my knees can no longer refrain from trembling.

“Go to the bedroom,” he snarls, still out of breath. “Get out of here.”

I finally stand and turn, my body shivering while he looks over my exposed chest and my tearful eyes. Carter isn’t one to feel much sympathy, but lately, I’ve seen that change in him. He grabs my arm when I try to move past him, pulling me into his warm, familiar chest, where he pins me in his embrace.

“I don’t want us to go down that path again, dove.”

I don’t need him to elaborate. The scars on my ass will probably never heal fully. He sees them every time he’s behind me, and even with my tight panties on, he can probably still see the marks. I’ve never seen him so untamed, so vicious, and I don’t need him being that man anymore.

I need to tame him before everything falls apart, but how do I tame a man who was born to be reckless?

He nudges me into the hall, signaling that it’s time to go to the bedroom, but I need to entice my furious lover. I take his hand, walking toward the other end of the hall and then downstairs. Thankfully, Tristan and Sam left without needing to be shown out the door.

It’s also good that the movers have taken the rest of the afternoon off, guaranteeing that our home full of boxes is left for us to play in for the night. I open the basement door and scurry down the stairs, Carter most likely considering throwing me over his shoulder and taking me to the bedroom anyway.

I flick on the light downstairs, exposing a steaming hot tub with an attached pool separated by a waterfall barrier. His eyes light up with enticement, and I strip out of the rest of my underwear before I walk along the barrier between the pool and the hot tub.

“Alright, dove,” he hums. “I’ll play with you.”

He strips out of his clothes slowly, thankfully not bringing the belt with him. He tosses it aside, but I reach over and grab it. His eyes glimmer with curiosity, and his cock is already erect when he steps out of his pants. He takes the steps down into the hot tub, and I loop the belt around my neck, pushing the metal clip into the hollow of my throat.

It’s not the best sex leash I’ve ever seen, and it’s nowhere near the level of quality that he has hung on the walls at the lifestyle club, but it’s enough for him to lean back where he sits and give me a firm nod.

I walk into the warm, bubbling water to meet him where he sits. His hands slide up my slick, wet sides, his fingers clutching the belt suddenly and yanking it down. The leather grows tight around my throat while I lean forward, his lips dangerously teasing my own.

“You’re getting clever,” he whispers, his teeth taking a little bite of my bottom lip while I pant to breathe with the belt strung firmly around my neck. “But you know you’re not in charge, right?”

“Yes, sir,” I manage to pant out. “Not in… control…”

“Good, girl.”

He pulls tighter, forcing me onto my knees where he can loosen the strap on my neck. He doesn’t remove it, though, adjusting his knees to further spread my thighs. I’m fully vulnerable now, his erection brushing the entrance of my pussy.

“I’m going to enjoy you for a long time, dove. You know that, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you know your job is to come for me over and over again, right?”

Again, I nod. “Yes, sir.”

“So, why aren’t you straddling my cock yet with your tight, throbbing pussy?”

I lean forward, my chest brushing his so I can distract him from punishing me again. I line little kisses across his shoulder, settling on one spot near the center of his neck where I can kiss, bite, and suck as needed. He pushes his fingertips down the small of my back, his index finger adding pressure to my tight little asshole.

It’s enough to make me release the skin of his neck, my pussy desperately crawling over his daunting length. I don’t care how many times we’re together. I’m always as apprehensive of his size like it’s the first time he’s ever entered me.

I try to manage a steady pace through the water, feeling the hot temperature crawl up my back while I create a new wave of movement under the harsh jets coming from the walls of the space. He doesn’t let up on his finger, pushing into my ass, daring to enter my anus with one knuckle, then two, causing an eruption of pressure in the small orifice.

I can hardly hold it anymore, running through my first orgasm at a fast pace, the next quickly following.

Before that can happen, though, he flips me around, his fist curling into the belt around my throat. He slams my ass into the wall, the pressure from a single jet punching the hole he was just fingering and adding to a new, harsh spike of pain and pleasure. His hips still thrust into mine, splashing water all over the floor, but it doesn’t matter.

Nothing else matters right now.

My ass is going through pleasing pain, my pussy is filled with my lover’s cock, and my neck is slowly being teased with pressure as he fights to yank every emotion out of me at once. I scream when I come, and he muffles it with his lips, accepting my groaning pants as part of our deepening kiss.

I lay my head back, forcing my legs as wide as possible while unsure whether to cry from joyous pleasure or overwhelming pain.

“Come, dammit,” he snarls. “I want another from you.”

I squeak through the pressure of the belt, breaking into another round of speckled vision and dizzy senses. My fingernails dig into the back of his shoulders, most likely drawing blood. He doesn’t care, gripping the belt in one hand while holding onto the edge of the hot tub for dear life with the other.

“Do you think any other woman could make me feel this way, dove?”

His voice echoes off the walls, surrounding me with his authority.

“No, sir.”

“Are you going to accuse me of cheating again?”

I shake my head, daring to fall into another deep swell of pleasure. He waits for it to pass, hitting his own edge of orgasmic relief. We end up falling together, and the tightening pull of the belt on my neck doesn’t help. It’s so savagely dominant that it makes everything so much more intense.

When the smoke settles, he undoes the belt and throws it across the floor. I gasp, working to catch my breath and clinging to his body in the hot tub just so the harsh jet can finally stop hitting my asshole with such precision. He laughs as he stands up from the water, working hard to keep me upright and against his chest.

“Good, dove,” he whispers, kissing my cheek. “Now, let’s go to bed. I’m not nearly done with you yet.”

He sets me down and finds a spare towel in a moving box down here, wrapping me inside of it. He doesn’t care to do the same, pushing me to walk up the steps while he slides into his pants, still soaking wet. He doesn’t bother fighting with his shirt, and I’m happy about that, his chiseled physique driving me crazy.

We’re halfway through the living room when there’s a light knock on the door. Carter kisses my temple, points to the stairs to signal our bedroom, and makes his way to the front door. For some reason, perhaps due to my constant desire to defy him and be punished over it later, I hesitate to leave, keeping him in my sight.

He swings the door open, and an unfamiliar man stands on the doorstep.

“Who the fuck are you?” Carter asks.

The man slides his hands into his front pockets and looks at me through the clearest eyes I’ve ever seen in my life. Like glass, I can sense the resemblance in his features already, and it makes me far too afraid to move.

“You look just like—”

“Like Jacob Lacey?” the man interrupts, finishing my sentence. “He was my twin brother.”